Green Synthesis of Silver Nano-Particles by Use of Edible Oils

Avoiding use of environmentally hazardous reducing agents and surfactants like sodium borohydride, hydrazine hydrate, alkyl amines and alkyl phosphines, the current article describes successful synthesis of silver nanoparticles via green synthesis by employing coconut, Indian gooseberry (amla), almond and mustard oils as capping as well as reducing agents. The presence of various fatty acids in such edible oils act as capping agents through their carboxylic acid functionality and control the growth of nanoparticles. A single step, simple synthetic method yielded silver nanoparticles which were characterized by UV-Visible, fluorescence spectroscopy, XRD, TEM and particle size analysis. As-prepared particles showed surface plasmon resonance (SPR) between 410 nm to 430 nm with narrow peak width indicating formation of homogeneous sized particles. XRD revealed formation of face cantered cubic crystal structure of silver. TEM analysis of the samples showed spherical morphology with particle size typically between 10-20 nm.